Walkers Admit Guilt In Navy Spying Case

BALTIMORE — John A. Walker Jr. and his son Michael pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy and espionage charges for their roles in a spy ring that sold Navy communications secrets to the Soviet Union.

A U.S. district judge accepted the plea agreements from John Walker, a retired Navy warrant officer, and Michael, a Navy enlisted man. As part of the deal, they both promised to cooperate with federal prosecution of others in the case.

The elder Walker, the mastermind of the spy ring, faces a life sentence; his son faces a 25-year term. Authorities said John Walker agreed to plead guilty and help prosecutors in order to win a lighter sentence for his son.

They agreed to ''cooperate completely'' with federal officials seeking to assess the damage caused by the spying. They also agreed to testify at the January trial of former Navy communications expert Jerry A. Whitworth of Davis, Calif., another suspected member of the ring.

Information furnished by John Walker ''should be of great, incalculable value to the government,'' said U.S. District Judge Alexander Harvey II.

Whitworth's defense attorney, James Larson, said he would seek a court order to limit any testimony by John Walker in Whitworth's trial. Walker's plea arrangement ''changes the complexion of the case against Whitworth,'' Larson said in San Francisco.

Although Harvey postponed formal sentencing indefinitely, pending ''the nature and scope of cooperation'' offered by the Walkers, he indicated that he would approve the Department of Justice's recommendation of a life term for John Walker, 48, and 25 years for his son, who is 22.

''If the court accepts your plea agreement, that will be the sentence imposed,'' Harvey told each man before he heard them affirm their guilt and

accepted both agreements.

Under a life term, John Walker technically would be eligible for parole in 10 years. Attorneys for both sides said that parole may be unlikely at that date in

view of his crime.

Michael Walker would be eligible for parole in slightly more than eight years.

Department of Justice officials insisted that the agreements were not ''plea bargains'' because of the stiff sentences. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Schatzow said that the government accepted the guilty pleas because it needed to know ''what was broken and what must be fixed'' as a result of the documents that Walker provided the Soviets.

Fred W. Bennett, the federal public defender in Baltimore who represented John Walker, said his client's chief motivation in pleading guilty was to obtain a less-than-life sentence for his son, ''whose future he cares more about than his own.''